


Long Memory

by thesummerstorms



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: (in some chapters), Canonical Character Death, Drabbles, Etain Lives AU, Etain-centric, F/M, Pointless, Snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:10:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesummerstorms/pseuds/thesummerstorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Collection of Republic Commando snippets done mainly for my own amusement and/or writing practice. Some canon-compliant, some AU, some following head canon. Not guaranteed to be very polished or make much sense. </p><p>Will likely be heavy on Etain-related chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This is Kast Fullier

This is Kast Fullier: dark-eyed, handsome, young. A hero of the Jedi Order. But the Order has many heroes. It’s easy to overlook such a small one.

This is Kast Fullier, sweat-stained, flickering, strong.

His Master laughs, and calls him a visionary, a rueful note sinking half-hidden in her voice. He has many visions, this Jedi, and he is still young enough to try and fight them all.

This is Kast Fullier, defiant, his lightsaber ablaze, who thinks of home and does not see Anaxes, the world of his birth. Does not see the Jedi Temple’s splendored halls. This is Kast Fullier, who sees his fellow Padawan instead, pale, stirring, cradled in the ruins of the Coruscanti undercity, blood mixing in the shifting dust.

This is Kast Fullier, stupidly brave. This is Kast Fullier, who saves people because once he did not.

\----

He reads the words of a woman, a survivor who had left the Order, or had been left by it, years before. Her words echo, lingering like smoke, though her name is lost to the memory of war, dead with the ghosts of Malachor V.

_A Jedi’s life is sacrifice._

Kast will tell this to Etain, and she will not understand.

The Jedi name the woman Exile, and forget.

Kast remembers. Or he tries to.

\---

“You can’t stand,” he tells Etain, “Until you know what you’re willing to stand for.”

_(He who stands and invites ruin, over and over again. Thinking, unthinking, of familiar faces. When the ruin comes, it will not be all his own.)_

She doesn’t get it then; she’s still too young. She frowns and looks up into the eyes of a statue of Nomi Sunrider, hero of Jedi heroes, and sees only a woman of power, blessed by the Force. She cannot yet see the woman who first raised her blade- her dead husband’s blade- in defense of her child.

“I’m not as strong as her,” Etain observes, and she isn’t, yet.

_(Kast Fullier, who stands in ruin, will not live long enough to see her strength. He will not see her learn his lessons, or see her live them, in the shadow of a gunship on Qiilura, or in those last moments beneath Coruscant’s smoke-filled sky. He will be dead before he ever knows.)_

She turns away from the statue, to examine him in turn. “What about you, Master?”

“What about me?”

“What do you stand for then?”

There’s a proper answer to that question. More than one. Simple answers, of the kind they’ve both heard for all their lives, based on years of interpretation of the Jedi Code. Kast doesn’t give them.

“People,” he tells his Padawan, only half-lying, and watches as her brow furrows in confusion.

_(And the ghosts he sees written in their faces. But she doesn’t need to know that.)_

A Jedi’s life is worth nothing, except for the lives it touches. He is not a good teacher, but she learns anyway.


	2. Resemblence

It hits when he least expects it, slamming his chest like a concussion round.  
Kad looks up at him, chin tilted downwards, small shoulders braced to block the door. The boy’s thin mouth twists with his stubbornness.

  
Dar chokes, then blinks hard.

  
He looks at his son in that moment, and the years flash backwards. For a moment it’s all written there in Kad’s cornered rage, in the slight dappling of freckles across his nose. Darman tries to force air into his throat, but his mind is a tumble of green and amber, burning with blue light.

  
“Son…” 

  
Kad freezes for a moment, his eyes shooting to the sigil on his father’s armor. A gold-thorned band of grey stretched across the left shoulder plate. 

  
“ _Buir?”_

  
He knows though. Darman can tell. The defiance drops slowly, reluctantly, from the child’s eyes. But that expression, half-caught between anger and concern- that’s hers, too. 

  
Kad takes a step forward, as if hesitant to drop his guard. Then his arms dart out to crush Darman’s waist. He’s only a little boy still, for all that he’s growing up tough. Darman kisses his forehead, and this time Kad doesn’t try to pull away.

  
“You’re a lot like her, you know,” he whispers, his voice gone uncomfortably low and hoarse, “She would have been so very proud of you, _ad’ika._ ”

  
Kad doesn’t say anything. It’s probably not fair to him, getting ambushed like that by his father’s grief. He’s not like a normal kid. There’s no way for him to shut it out.

  
_Kad’ika_ doesn’t ask much about his mother. Darman tries, they all do, but he’d been so young when Etain died and she’d been gone so often. How much does he even remember now? She’d loved him so much. Sometimes the questions keep Darman up at night.

  
After a moment he clears his throat, straightening, but keeping his hand on _Kad’ika_ ’s shoulder.

  
“You know,” he starts, looking over the top of his son’s head to the shelf where the charred nerf sits alone, waiting.  It’s missing an eye now, but Kad doesn’t carry it around anymore. “Did I ever tell you about the time your mother threatened the Senator from Anaxes?”


	3. Qiilura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kast refuses to tell Etain what he's hiding about the mission to Qiilura.

Etain sits across from him, scrapes on her elbows, hair a mess, wordlessly nursing her own pride. It’s unlike her to be so quiet, but her silence mirrors his own. She cannot protest- doesn’t dare- and he knows it. But her still tongue speaks her resentment. Her hands stay steady as she pulls another spray of bacta from her kit, but her eyes do not.

He ignores it, and continues to tend to the grey-faced farmer kneeling in the dirt beside him.

She is angry, and he should chide her for it. She has no right. She is Jedi, a Padawan, meant to be serene, to serve, to accept his guidance. Her short temper, her impatience for answers, do her little credit. Kast, as her Master, is meant to admonish her.

He is bad teacher, so he does not. He is too tired, and this night has been too long. Etain is angry because she knows he’s hiding, but Kast only lies for good reason. She is his student, his to guard, and this cannot be her burden. Not yet, when his own mind is so unsettled.

How is he meant to chide her for her faithlessness, for her questions, he wonders, when his mind is so full of his own? Whatever else he may be, Kast Fullier is not a hypocrite.

The Order has sent him here with a purpose, one Etain can only half guess. It leaves him ill at ease.

The Separatists are here on Qiilura. He and Etain have snuck onto this planet of tenant farmers to hunt them down. It is a simple task. And though Kast has never considered himself a man of politics, that alone would be enough to make him wonder. He does not know how this conflict will end, doubts that even the Council can guess.

But the secret thing, the thing his Padawan can see him concealing in his furrowed brow- _that_ is almost beyond imagining.

They come not just to hunt the Separatists, but a Separatist virus. Miniscule strands of DNA tumbled and knitted together so as to bring down an army. A Republic army, new-made for the growing unrest. Flesh and blood bought with Republic coin.

Kast Fullier, who once defied the Council to pursue Trandoshan slavers into the Outer Rim, is tasked with this army’s protection. He wonders at the Council’s purpose, and bites his lip when he thinks Etain isn’t looking. Otherwise, he keeps his face a mask of perfect calm, as if meditating in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and continues tending to the farmers.

 _No creature deserves such a fate_ , he thinks as he spends the last of his medkit. And so, for now, they stay.

“Kast,” Etain says finally, still clearly reluctant to speak at all, “We’re almost out of bacta.”

The half-starved boy she’s been treating looks up, dark smudges beneath his eyes that might or might not prove dirt in better light. His mother watches him anxiously, her tooth-marked arm twitching beneath Kast’s hands. He can smell the alcohol on her breath.

 _No creature_ , Kast thinks, but the farmers were not the objective. Etain is right. They were sent only with enough supplies to protect two Jedi from the local Gdan, and they’ve burned through almost all of it. Without medicine to treat the infections caused by the deadly bacteria in the creatures’ teeth, Kast and Etain will soon be restricted to movement in the daylight hours, the same as the locals.

_No creature._

Somewhere nearby, a scientist is crafting a plague for millions upon millions of commodified men. Here around them, people starve, hiding because there are no doctors.

“Go on, Etain.”

Etain frowns at him, but his expression remains firm. They are Jedi. They live to serve. And with or without the medicine, they will adapt. He is not thinking of goals, now, but faces. Could he call himself Jedi any other way? They will adapt. Or they will not.

“Etain.”

Etain bows her head and breaks the seal on the last medpack, still prickly, bristling with questions. But she obeys.

Later that same night, as they sit by an empty hearth, Etain meditating unsuccessfully, Kast wonders if she is right. If he should have told her. She is no longer the child he once moved to save. She is Jedi, and almost old enough for her trials. He must _teach_ her, while there is still time left.

But though he knows the Force has lead them here, he cannot think why. Its purpose is as inscrutable as the Council. What is it he is mean to teach, here on this sickly planet, serving a government that buys men? What is he meant to _learn_?

He and Etain- they’re both bound up in it somehow, he knows that much, but he cannot see how. For what purpose? To what end?

 _A Jedi’s life is sacrifice_ \- but for what?

It has been a long time since he felt so adrift, and vainly, he wishes for his own Master, long since gone to the Force.

In the end, he decides not to tell Etain about the clones. Not yet. Let her resent his lack of trust for now. First, he must come to understand his own answers. But they have plenty of time yet.

 


	4. A Morning Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ficlet. Etain and Darman spend a few precious moments together after a too-brief night on the same base.

Etain was already awake, or had maybe never made it back to sleep in the first place. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her desk, her dull outer cloak crumpled and pooling out across the ground around her.

Darman nudged the door almost closed behind him, leaving it cracked just enough not to raise eyebrows without anyone actually being able to see in from the hall. Then, with an eye to the window, he crossed the room, put the two mugs of caf on the desk, and placed both hands on Etain’s shoulders. She didn’t so much as flinch, but a small smile broke the blank stillness of her face.

“General,” he said, and bent down to brush his lips over the top of her forehead.

She put a hand over his, looking up at him. “Private.” Her fingers laced with his. “I’m surprised to see you awake, as late as your patrol ran.”

The little crease at the corner of her eyes, he was delighted to realize, was still enough to send his heart thudding a little faster. Gently he tugged at their joined hands, pulling her from her meditations up to her feet and turning her to face him.

“Well, ma’am,” he grinned as she leaned forward and hooked an arm around his waist, “You see, Niner snores something awful.”

Oh, he didn’t _deserve_ the coolly skeptical eyebrow he got at that, but the warmth of her laugh made up for it.

“ _Just_ Niner, huh?”

“Well, Fi isn’t exactly musical either…”

Etain hummed knowingly; the hand on his back crept beneath his shirt. Maybe he should have shut the door all the way after all. He coughed to clear the sudden catch in his throat, trying to focus on redirecting the silent accusation the tilt of her mouth was tossing his way.

“Besides, ma’am, you had a late night too, didn’t you? And you’re still up before reveille. Setting a good example?”

“Not intentionally. I just have a lot to catch up on, and an early shuttle back to the Fleet.” She glanced behind him at the wall chrono.  “Soon, in fact. I might really need that caf if there’s going to be a briefing along the way.”

That was the way these things went, he knew. Omega had been at the FOB for barely a day, but Etain, who had been here for a week or two before them, was already being recalled to Coruscant. The brief overlap in their schedules was already ending after one single planetary night.

It wasn’t enough, even when they took advantage.

He looked down at her, wondering how to tell her that without saying it. The thumb Etain was tracing along his back made it plain she already knew, that she _agreed_ , but suddenly he longed to tell her just how much he already missed her, how much he _always_ missed her. Even if he had said it in a dozen wordless ways last night…

He stepped closer, pressing forward until she was backed against the desk, gently steering her away from the precariously placed mugs. He should have gone ahead and shut the door, but she was already edging up on her toes. Darman’s gut squirmed. He leaned in to kiss her again-

-only to be cut off by a sudden loud electronic _squawk_. Etain jumped, and he stumbled back away from her, feeling the heat flush through his face. It wasn’t until Etain pulled away entirely and circled back behind the desk that he realized that the noise was coming from her comm console.  A soft blue light illuminated her face from beneath as she activated the display, scowling as she read the ident code on the frequency, and wordlessly, he stepped ever so slightly sideways out of possible view of the incoming transmission.

But then she started to straighten her robe, looking worriedly from the console to him and back again. With a sinking feeling, Darman realized that this wasn’t going to be the kind of routine call she could answer quickly while he waited patiently in the corner. Someone somewhere was calling her back to business.

“I’m sorry, Dar. I have to take this.”

She reached across the desk and took his hand, squeezing it apologetically. He arranged his mouth in a smile, trying to let her know that it was okay and he understood, but the gesture must have looked as forced as it felt.

_I love you_ , he thought, raising her hand to his lips and gently kissing the knuckles once before letting go. Then he took the extra caf from her desk and made another respectful step back.

“Yes ma’am. I’ll get out of your hair then. Have a safe flight back.”

Her look lingered, but Darman didn’t wait for her reply before he turned and backed out the door. As he stepped into the hallway, smoothing out his fatigues with his free hand, he heard her terse greeting. “Tur-Mukan here. What’s happened?”

He shut the door behind him, and her voice disappeared. And just like that they were back to real life.


	5. Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abandoned 326 word snippet that came about as a result of my brief hospitalization in February. Mostly unedited.

The voices are as small and far away as his limbs are heavy. Which is to say, very.

At first Darman isn’t even sure that any of it- the voices, the heaviness, the taste of bacta still thick and sickly-sweet in his mouth- is even real. He isn’t quite sure it matters if they are or aren’t.

The voices though, however small, are getting higher pitched. Louder. Upset. Some small pressure on his arm falls away as one of the voices turns from him, but that other pressure, the familiar unsettling rattling at the back of his skull remains.

_Etain_ he thinks, but does not open his eyes. His body feels leaden, yet vaguely empty, cocooned. He thinks that if he had to, he might be able to find his limbs, to discover them again and force his eyes back open. Maybe.

But he doesn’t want to just yet. He’s tired. He can’t remember the last time he was so tired, set adrift, set swimming-

The voices clash and ring, but the pressure against the back of his mind remains unchanged. After a moment, he realizes someone is stroking his hair.

_Etain_.

Etain, yes, he’s sure now. One of the voices is hers, and it’s angry. Maybe he should be alarmed at that, but it’s hard to rally any concern. He can feel more clearly now, even through the leaden-emptiness, the way she’s pressed herself to him.

_Etain_. Warmth swells through him, comfort at the sound even of her anger. Whatever has drawn her ire seems unimportant just now. He knows well enough that she can handle it, that she will. There’s no need for him to trouble himself waking, not with Etain near. Which is good. All Darman can think to want is sleep.

So he turns to it. Turns and lets himself falls back into the empty-limbed blackness, secure in the knowledge that whatever waits outside his small bubble of unreality, he is safe.


End file.
